Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/120

106 crime are personal, cosmical, social. The personal factors are sex, age, physical and mental constitution. The physical inferiority of women affects the nature of feminine offences, their isolation the number. At different ages different crimes are dominant. Bold thefts are common in youth; offences of violence and cunning belong to later stages. As age advances crime decreases. The physical factors are not as a rule direct causes. They debar an individual from honestly obtaining the means of life, and so lead to crime indirectly. There is no proof of the existence of a distinct criminal type. Though mental defects, like physical, in the main act indirectly, some psychological characteristics, such as want of pity and probity, do directly betray a criminal disposition. Cosmical conditions are those of climate, soil, seasons, temperature, configuration of the earth. The evidence of international statistics is insufficient to show that nature has more than an indirect influence on conduct. The influence of temperature is not quite certain, but that of the seasons is indubitable. The social causes of crime are numerous and complex. Most important of them is the concentration of population in large towns. The denser the population, the greater is the proportionate number of police. Poverty may influence the nature of crime, but not the amount. That ignorance is an important factor is now denied by all investigators. Education merely determines the form of crime. The effect of drink has been exaggerated. It is the most temperate communities that present the blackest criminal records. The influence of nationality cannot be determined precisely. Occupation, political institutions, militarism, and religious beliefs, all exercise a distinct effect. . The general conclusion is that criminal conduct is a product of all the causes working together, but operating in each case with different degrees of intensity. With regard to the repression of crime, we must study the physical, mental, social, and economic conditions of the criminal, before we can devise effective measures. The diminution and mitigation of punishment have been carried to excess. Imprisonment in cells only intensifies criminal propensities. Abolition of cells and establishment of outdoor occupations are the reforms at present most urgently demanded.

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A defence of utilitarianism in view of later criticisms. Right acts are those which do not cause excess of unhappiness over happiness, if we consider all affected, and especially remote and indirect consequences. It is sometimes difficult to determine on which side the preponderance lies. But utilitarians do not attempt to introduce the yard-stick into ethics. Only those acts, however, are moral and right which are voluntary,